Money making guide
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There are lots of ways of "making money" in RimWorld. Depending on a colony's location, progress, and inhabitants, certain means of production will be more viable than others. Some can give profit in the long-term, but require more set-up or work. And there are (at least!) two ways to measure "best" - making the fastest profit in the least time, or squeezing the most profit out of a limited amount of starting material, even if it takes longer. This guide will give an overview of the different options.
In no particular order:
- Crops, including cloth & drug production
- Animals, including textile crafting
- Construction, art and crafting.
- Prisoners, and their human resources
Note on trading
There is no "buy low, sell high" in RimWorld. In general, trader prices do not vary, At most, any faction base offers a +2% Trade Price Improvement, resulting in both lower buying prices and higher selling prices. But certain traders will only accept certain types of items. While a faction base will buy almost everything in their tech level, a combat supplier may not be interested in your human leather.
There is another factor discouraging buy, then sell. There is a default 0.6x price multiplier for selling, and a separate 1.4x price multiplier for buying anything. The Trade price disadvantage storyteller difficulty setting will make things even worse. Your trading disadvantage can be reduced by increasing Social skill (and other means of raising TPI).
All values in this guide assume Strive to Survive difficulty, and use Market Value instead of "actual" value. Difficulty impacts the yield of crops, as well as the trade price disadvantage. And, if you have 0 Social skill, expect things to become 233% more expensive in Strive to Survive, or 350% more expensive in Losing is Fun.
Food Crops
| Crop | Total Work (per plant)[1] |
Raw material (per plant)[2] |
Market Value (per plant) |
Market Value (per hour work) |
Real days to grow[3] |
Profit/day plant growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corn plant | 370 ticks (Plants) |  22
|
 24.2
|
163.5
|
20.86 days | 1.16
|
| Haygrass | 370 ticks (Plants) |  18
|
10.8
|
73.0
|
12.92 days | 0.83
|
| Rice plant | 370 ticks (Plants) |  6
|
6.6
|
44.6
|
5.54 days | 1.19
|
| Potato plant | 370 ticks (Plants) |  11
|
12.1
|
81.77
|
10.71 days | 1.12
|
Nutrifungus
|
370 ticks (Plants) |  11
|
12.1
|
81.77
|
11.07 days | 1.09
|
- 1 Time it takes to sow and then harvest. Directly reduced by Plant Work Speed. Does not account for travel/hauling time.
- 2 Assuming 100% harvest yield (difficulty stat) and 100% Plant Harvest Yield (pawn stat, impacted by Plants skill).
- 3 Time to grow, taking into account day/night cycles, but not sub-optimal light level. Assuming 100% soil fertility. Rice and Corn are equally affected by soil, but corn cannot be grown in hydroponics. Nutrifungus, then potatoes, are affected the least by both poor and good soil.
Corn is the best crop for both human food/work and cash/work. It is actually more profitable per unit work than any crop in the game, including every drug. However, it cannot be processed any further, meaning it is reliant entirely on the grow cycle. Per unit, it is less valuable than any drug, meaning more time is spent hauling. You'll might have to carry all that corn - only bulk goods traders and faction bases will buy it. And, in practice, the slow growing cycle can be a large issue. Corn is more difficult to grow in biomes with a winter. It is vulnerable to destruction, whenever by fire and blight.
Haygrass gives more nutrition/day than corn, but cannot be eaten by humans unless produced into kibble, which gives a −12 moodlet. It is also less efficient for work. Rice is good as a stable source of food, but is not efficient at all in terms of product / work. Rice, potatoes, and corn all have roughly the same nutrition per day, just that rice is the most stable, and corn saves the most work.
Make sure not to sell food that you need to eat. When cooked into simple meals or regular fine meals, each colonist will eat an effective 20 raw food per day. For reference, a field of ~25 tiles of rice, or 20 tiles of rich soil rice, is enough to practically sustain a single colonist in a year-round growing biome indefinitely. Then you can grow and sell endless fields of corn, without starving.
Product
Raw food can be turned directly into sellable packaged survival meals, pemmican, and chemfuel. However, both packaged meals and pemmican require a source of meat, meaning they will not be covered in the table below. Both haygrass and corn can be used to feed animals, but most animals can graze in the summer (or all year, if the biome supports it).
| Product | Total Work | Cost | Market Value | Added Value @ Corn (per hr work) |
Added Value @ Human meat (per hr work) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chemfuel | 2500 ticks (no skill) | 3.5 nutrition (70 raw food) | 80.5
|
< 0.01
|
24.5
|
Corn-turned chemfuel in a biofuel refinery is barely profitable when compared to selling raw corn. You can use less desirable food, like human meat and insect meat, though it is still less profitable than growing rice. Haygrass cannot be used in the refinery unless first turned into kibble.
Chemfuel has its advantages: it is lighter and never rots.
Cash crops
| Crop | Planter Work (per plant)[1] |
Raw material (per plant)[2] |
Market Value (per plant) |
Market Value (per hr work) |
Real days to grow[3] |
Profit/day plant growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cotton plant | 370 ticks (Plants) |  10
|
15
|
101.35
|
14.77 days | 1.02
|
| Devilstrand | 600 ticks (Plants) |  6
|
33
|
137.5
|
41.54 days | 0.794
|
| Healroot | 1200 ticks (Plants) |  1
|
10
|
20.83
|
12.92 days | 0.773
|
| Hops | 370 ticks (Plants) |  8
|
10.4
|
70.27
|
9.23 days | 1.127
|
| Smokeleaf plant | 370 ticks (Plants) |  9
|
14.4
|
97.3
|
12.92 days | 1.115
|
| Psychoid plant | 370 ticks (Plants) |  8
|
15.2
|
102.7
|
16.62 days | 0.914
|
| Ambrosia bush[4] | 200 ticks (Plants) |  4
|
60
|
(750)
|
N/A | N/A |
- 1 Time it takes to sow and then harvest. Directly reduced by Plant Work Speed. Does not account for travel/hauling time.
- 2 Assuming 100% harvest yield (difficulty stat) and 100% Plant Harvest Yield (pawn stat, impacted by Plants skill).
- 3 Time to grow, taking into account day/night cycles, but not sub-optimal light level. Assuming 100% soil fertility. Psychoid has the least Fert. sensitivity, and hops are less than the other plants.
- 4 Ambrosia bushes cannot be planted, only appearing from the event. You cannot control where the ambrosia sprouts, meaning that travel time is highly variable. Note that these bushes can be harvested multiple times.
Psychoid and cloth are the clear winners when selling raw. Psychoid has lowered fertillity sensitivity, so it is weaker per day in hydroponics.
Devilstrand gives more $/work, but it grows nearly twice as slow as corn. As corn gives even more $/work, it is the superior option. Ambrosia blows all plants out of the water and requires no process work afterwards, but is limited to the event.
Cloth and devilstrand can be used as textiles for both Crafting and Construction items. The rest of the plants are drugs, and can be processed with either Cooking or Intellectual.
Drug Production
| Drug | Synthesis Work (per plant) |
Material (per plant) |
Market Value (per plant) |
Market Value (per hr work total)[1] |
Added Value (per plant) |
Added Value (per hr work) |
Profit/day plant growth | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beer | 320 ticks (Cook)[2] |  1.6
|
19.2
|
69.56
|
8.8
|
68.75
|
2.086[3]
| |
| Smokeleaf joint | 1012.5 ticks (Cook) |  2.25
|
24.75
|
46.22
|
10.35
|
25.56
|
1.916
| |
| Psychite tea | 800 ticks (Cook) |  2
|
20
|
42.73
|
2.4
|
7.5
|
1.316
| |
| Flake | 500 ticks (Intel.) |  2
|
28
|
80.46
|
12.8
|
64
|
1.842
| |
| Yayo | 350 ticks (Intel.) |  1
|
21
|
72.92
|
5.8
|
41.43
|
1.381
|
- 1 Combined work from both planting and synthesis. Controlled by Plant Work Speed and either Drug Cooking Speed (Cook) or Drug Synthesis Speed (Intel.).
- 2 For beer, hops need to be converted into wort, then put into a fermenting barrel to make beer. This extra hauling work is not accounted for.
- 3 Beer takes 6 days to ferment from wort in a fermenting barrel. Fermentation can be done concurrently with plant work, so this is ignored.
- Why Drugs?
Despite having a lower value/work ratio than raw plants, drugs have several major advantages.
All calculations assume that a drug is constantly being planted, harvested, and synthesized by 1 pawn, before travel time. These tables are comparing 1000 leaves-turned-flake to selling 2315 raw leaves, not 1000 to 1000 leaves. If your planter is not constantly harvesting and resowing every day until the first batch of drug finishes growing, then you have time to synthesize.
If you are able to plant every day, drug synthesis allows you to get more value from the same growing space. Creating drugs allows 2 pawns, perhaps with different skills and passions, to "work" at the same sized field at the same time. This shouldn't need to be said, but if you have a pawn that's bad at plants but great at intellectual, then they are better off creating drugs. Certain biomes may be limited in grow space. Other biomes can let you grow in the summer, and synthesize in the winter. And even in a tropical rainforest: fields this large can be difficult to protect from fire, raiders, and blight - not even considering walk distance. With Plants 8 and an 8 hour work day, this would be 897 tiles of psychoid.
The other advantage is with logistics. More traders accept drugs than raw plants. Drugs are much lighter than their raw materials, meaning caravans and transport pods can carry much more at a time. In addition, plant matter will rot when unrefrigerated; drugs don't.
- Drug Comparison
Flake is the absolute winner for almost every relevant stat, considering beer's fermentation time. Yayo takes less work per leaf, but selling flake + excess leaves is more valuable than selling yayo. However: if work time is not an issue, but hydroponics space is, then smokeleaf is the superior choice. If Psychite Refining has not been researched, then Beer (requires Beer Brewing) and smokeleaf (requires Drug Production to not be half speed) have their merits.
Psychite tea is clearly the worst available drug for selling. However, colonies may produce it to drink. Psychite tea can be safely drank by adult colonists every 2 days, giving Recreation and decreasing the Rest each colonist needs. As calculated in psychite tea's analysis section, it is virtually always positive in terms of work gained : work required ratio. Excess psychite tea can be sold to traders for a decent profit.
- High Life
The high life meme multiplies yield of drug plants by x1.5, drug creation speed by x1.5, and gives +10% Trade Price Improvement when selling drugs. Psychoid leaves alone becomes very comparable in Value / Planter Work to corn.
While psychoid (and other drug crops) are still worse in optimal value / work time than corn, creating drugs has its advantages, listed in "Why Drugs?". Therefore, high life flake tends to be better in practice than corn, let alone flake without an ideology.
Neutroamine drugs
Some drugs require neutroamine, which can only be reliably obtained via trade. This is subject to the various Trade Price Improvements, but under the default difficulty settings at 0% TPI, you buy at a x1.4 markup and sell at a x0.6 loss. Neutroamine is a finite resource at any one point in time, so you are often better off using it for the actual drugs
| Drug | Synthesis Work |
Cost ( @ 0% TPI)[1]
|
Market Value | Profit @ 0% TPI (per drug) |
Profit @ 0% TPI (per hr work) |
Profit @ 30% TPI (per drug)[2] |
Profit @ 30% TPI (per hr work)[2] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Penoxycyline | 600 ticks (Intel.) |  2 ( 16.8)
|
18
|
−6
|
N/A | 2.28
|
9.5
| |
| Medicine | 900 ticks (Intel.) | 1 + 3 + 1 ( 8.4 bought + 14.5 other)
|
18
|
Never | N/A | Never | N/A | |
| Go-juice | 600 ticks (Intel.) | 2 + 1 ( 16.8 bought + 21 other)
|
53
|
2.4
|
10
|
13.2
|
55
| |
| Wake-up | 900 ticks (Intel.) | 2 ( 16.8)
|
35
|
4.2
|
11.67
|
15.54
|
43.17
|
- 1 Assuming neutroamine is bought, at 140% markup. Anything that can be produced in your colony is assumed to be produced at your colony, and is worth regular market value. The trade disadvantage is taken account when calculating profits for not-neutroamine goods (i.e. yayo is 21 * 0.6 for the 0% TPI profit column).
- 2 30% TPI is reached at 20 Social skill with no other modifiers, or 8 Social skill with a trading inspiration (you may need to have multiple inspirations). You sell at x0.78 and buy at x0.98.
As the trade price disadvantage is increased for difficulties past Strive to Survive, all neutroamine drugs cease to become (very) profitable.
Apparel and Armchairs
All the uses for cloth and other textiles. Both buildings and apparel have a quality value. The higher the quality, the higher the value. As a reference: you average normal quality at Crafting / Construction 6. You average good quality at Skill 13. For all effects of quality, including price multi. per quality, and the chance of each quality at a given skill level, see the Quality page.
Each product is made out of cloth, for comparison.
| Product | Total Work[1] | Cost | Net Value @ Normal | Added Value @ Normal (per unit material) |
Added Value @ Normal (per hr work) |
Net Value @ Good | Added Value @ Good (per unit material) |
Added Value @ Good (per hr work) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tribalwear | 1800 ticks (Craft) | 60 ( 90)
|
97
|
0.117 (+7.7%)
|
9.72
|
121.25
|
0.521 (+34.7%)
|
43.4
| |
| Duster | 10000 ticks (Craft) | 80 ( 120)
|
156
|
0.335 (+22.3%)
|
9
|
195
|
0.938 (+62.5%)
|
18.75
| |
| Armchair | 14000 ticks (Constr.) | 110 ( 165)
|
150.5[2]
|
−0.13 (−8.6%)
|
−2.59
|
188.1[1]
|
0.34 (+22.8%)
|
4.13
| |
Corset Formal vest
|
12000 ticks (Craft) | 45 ( 67.5)
|
111
|
0.97 (+64.7%)
|
9.06
|
138.75
|
1.58 (+105.5%)
|
14.84
|
- 1 Crafting speed is not increased by Crafting skill; skill only impacts quality. However, Construction Speed is impacted by the skill.
- 2 All constructed buildings are sold at at x0.7 price, in addition to the regular TPI and difficulty penalties. This is reflected in the armchair's value and profit.
For nearly every crafted / consructed item in RimWorld, market value is calculated directly with (Ingredient Value) and (Work to Make). This means that there's no particularly 'bad' or 'good' apparel item for the purposes of craft -> selling. The listed items are just the most optimal for a desired goal; do you want more profit per material, or do you want more profit per work time?
Dusters 
or Corsets / Formal vests require the most Work : Material, and therefore the most profitable in terms of Value/Material. However, they are poor in terms of $/Work. You should make them if you have crafters doing nothing AND have spare textiles lying around. Alternatively, you can sell any low-quality dusters you've accidentially made to any traders that show up.
Tribalwear is the polar opposite; best in $/work but worst in value/material. If you have a lot of spare material but need extra money fast, then create those. Quality has a huge impact on profit. The empire will not buy tribalwear; top hats will become the best for $/work.
Armchairs are in a similar, but worse position to dusters. Only make them if you have the textiles to spare, have an idle constructor, and have a much better constructor than crafter. With poor quality armchairs, it is more convenient to just deconstruct armchairs than sell them.
- Ideology Roles
Production Specialists have +50% general labor speed and +1 quality on all items. Masterwork items, worth x2.5 as much as normal, can become incredibly common. A level 20 specialist making tribalwears creates an average of 283.3 silver/hour. This should be compared to a level 20 Plants Specialist churning out corn at 308% speed and 143% yield, for 720 silver/hour. The amount of space required and amount of corn produced for maximum efficiency will be absurd, but so is the cloth required for max efficiency production specialist.
Sculptures
The game encourages creating art for sale. Art sells for x1.1 its value, as opposed to x0.7 value for most other constructed buildings (a 57% increase). Wood is the only material that makes sense to build sculptures for profit in terms of value added per unit work. For materials other than wood, the ratio of work cost versus value added is so low that it isn't worth it unless you either 1) have time and material to burn, or 2) are trying for a specific high-quality sculpture and are willing to sell off the failures.
In general, small sculptures have the highest profit/material and lowest profit/work, while large/grand sculptures are the opposite. What this means is that if you have time but are short on material and want to make the most of what you do have, make small sculptures. Conversely, if you have lots of material and want to create value (relatively) quickly, make grand sculptures. Practically speaking, grand sculptures, at a size of 4x4, are not as useful in your colony as large sculptures, so many players make large and sell off their lower-quality discards.
Also, be mindful that traders may not have enough silver or even goods to buy the best large/grand sculptures. Even faction bases and orbital traders will run out of actual silver.
| Size | Work to process | Profit @ Normal | Profit / Material | Profit / Work Hour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small sculpture | 12600 ticks (Art) | 49.5
|
0.99
|
9.81
|
| Large sculpture | 21000 ticks (Art) | 83.6
|
0.836
|
9.94
|
| Grand sculpture | 73500 ticks (Art) | 291.5
|
0.729
|
9.91
|
It is about 1/10th as profitable to make sculptures per unit work as to farm crops.
Ranching
Most animals will not provide terribly efficient returns for the labor needed to extract their products. However, depending on biome, simply allowing the animals to breed and graze freely can be a strong source of intermittent revenue. Simply leave them alone in a large pen to breed until they exceed the grazing capacity, then call in a trader or bring them to market. Animals have the additional benefit of being able to carry themselves in a caravan!
Note that since this is designed to be a minimal-labor strategy, it may be necessary to exclude your colonists from pens containing harvestable animals. Additionally, this may make it more profitable to immediately sell a sick animal rather then spend labor and resources on helping it recover.
Ranching for profit works best in equatorial biomes (where growing hay is unnecessary), and for colonies that are more constrained by space than labor (most of them, under default map size/soft pawn limit settings). Other areas will find it far less efficient.
Material Production
(tbd)
The Most Money
By now, it should be established that corn is easily the most profitable per unit work. With all the DLCs, how far can it go?
- At level 20 Plants, you reach 113% Harvest Yield and 238% Plants Harvest Speed.
- Very neurotic + Industrious give 175% Global Work Speed
- Trauma savant adds +50% Manipulation
- 2 field hands offset Plants Harvest Speed by +160% each
- Plants Specialist gives +70% speed and +30% yield.
- Elongated fingers
boosts manipulation by x110% (for 165% manipulation) - Never Sleep removes sleep without any work-related penalty
With a total of 150% yield and 3367% speed, you would reach a theoretical optimum of 8257 silver per hour. You would be planting 227.5 tiles per hour, or 5,460 tiles (a 73x73 area) per 24 hour day. If the entire map was regular soil and you didn't have to worry about travel time/light/food/recreation, this results in planting 113,895 tiles by the time the first corn finishes growing. This is a 337 x 337 area, much larger than a regular map.
This is before temporary modifiers like wake-up, work frenzy, and Work Drive.
How to Calculate
How to derive these numbers by yourself, in case you want to double-check this guide, or calculate values for other items.
Note: 1 RimWorld hour = 2,500 ticks.
Plants
- Planter Work = (Work to Sow) + (Work to Harvest)
- Market Value per plant = (Material Value) * (Material Yield)
- Market Value per hour work = (Market Value per plant) * [ (2500 ticks) / (Planter Work) ]
- Profit per day = (Market Value per plant) / (Real Days to Grow)
All produced items
- Synthesis Work or Crafter Work = (Work to Make)
- Total Work = (Work Ingredients) + (Work to Make)
- Market Value per work total = (Market Value) / (Total Work)
- Net Value = (Market Value) * (Sell Price Multiplier)
Added Value & Profit
- Added Value = (Market Value) - (Ingredient Value * Ingredients required)
- Added Value per hour work = (Added Value) * [ (2500 ticks) / (Synthesis Work) ]
- Profit at 0% TPI = 0.6 * (Market Value - Material Value Produced) - 1.4 * (Material Value Bought)
(At 0% TPI, items sell at 60% and are bought at 140%. See TPI page for all the buy/sell multipliers)
- Progression
- Quickstart Guides • Basics • Intermediate Midgame Guide • Advanced Endgame Guide • Ending the game
- Scenarios
- Lost Tribe Guide • Rich Explorer Guide • Naked Brutality Guide • The Mechanitor Guide
- Survival
- Extreme Heat Guide • Extreme Cold Guide • Extreme Desert Guide • Ice Sheet Guide • Sea Ice Guide • Events Guide
- Combat
- Defense tactics • Offense tactics • Weapon Guide
- Construction
- Colony Building Guide • Defense structures
- Production
- Food production • Money making guide
- Other
- Skill Training • Permadeath save conversion guide •
Ideology Min-Maxing